Michael McAleer answers motoring queries from readers every week.
From Philip Donegan:
I recently bought a 1997 Lexus LS400. During hard - but not severe - braking, particularly approaching a bend, it can yaw to left and right. I find this very unsettling, not having noticed it before in any other car I drove.
It happens only on certain limited occasions. Should I worry about it? Should I be asking the dealer to do something?
The advice would be to make contact with your dealer and bring them for a test drive in the car. By all accounts a 1997 LS400 should not suffer from yawing (pulling to one side). In particular anti-lock brakes (ABS) should overcome the problem and they are standard on this model.
The problem may be that one of the callipers is sticking and so brakes are not being applied evenly.
Our advice, and that of Aidan Nolan of Lexus Ireland, is to bring the car to the dealer, let them test drive the car and in particular get them to take a look at the brakepad wear. According to Aidan, he's done some high speed brake-testing on LS400s and has not encountered this problem before.
There may also be the chance that this car has been imported from Britain and there may be some surface rust on the undercarriage and in particular on the callipers.
Britain's salted roads are a scourge on the undercarriages of all cars and the advice is, when buying a used car, to look underneath for rust caused by salt from British roads. This may cause minor problems in the future.
From Eric Doyle:
I am currently paying Benefit-in-Kind (BIK) tax on a company car at approximately 20,000 miles per annum. However, my car is up for renewal and I am unsure as to whether to renew my company car (with the new BIK-PRSI legislation) or to seek mileage from my employer for my own car.
If I could secure a guaranteed amount from my employer would that offer the best option ?
A short answer would be yes. However, while the system is changing it will not be implemented until next December, so in the meantime you may be better off holding on to your current car, as any BIK is charged on the purchase price, which would have been significantly lower when you received the current car.
Deciding on which option to go for is largely dependent on the mileage rate being offered by your employer. If they go for a 50 cent average then over your mileage that will bring in €10,000 to offset your costs. Then you have to deduct your petrol (about €2,000), insurance (commercial will be in the region of €1,000) and then the car financing and depreciation costs for the year.
However, while you may not make money on this, breaking even is better than paying out BIK tax. In most cases there is no general answer as to which option is best. It depends on particular circumstances, but as Niall Benson of Contract People advises, people should not get over-excited by the issue of BIK.
As Niall advises, while a company car may end up costing you €3,000-€4,000, it may be less than the cost of looking after your own car.
What's more, you always have a relatively new vehicle, with no worries about servicing, running on new tyres and no worries about NCTs. And if the worst comes to the worst and you do end up in the ditch at least you only have your own well-being to worry about.
From Mr Hughes:
I recently bought an old Toyota Carina II in excellent condition . However, it came with one key for the driver's door and another key for everything else (ignition, passenger door, boot). What does this mean?
Apart from the fact that you need a keyring, it may suggest that during the lifetime of the car the driver's door lock has been replaced - possibly even the door itself. This could be due to an accident, or more likely, someone damaging the lock while trying to break into the car. Either way, provided it works, you should have no real problem with it.